F1 2021 Round 12: Belgian Grand Prix

Lando asleep with his old man on the right

Time and again the FIA just keep embarrassing themselves with convoluted and poorly defined rules that are not consistently implemented, this could really be the culmination of that.

Aside from not knowing their arse from their elbow when it comes to what a race start is, the track wasn’t overly wet, and they’d have cleared a dry line and been on intermediates within a few laps if they started. Plenty of races have started in far worse conditions. They’re supposed to be the best drivers in the world and as long as there is no aquaplaning, which it appears there wasn’t, then they should be able to drive to the conditions. If visibility is poor then stay further back or out of the trail of the car in front.

It seems like F1 shouldn’t bother lugging wet tyres from circuit to circuit as they never actually drive when the weather is suitable for them.

Am I the only one who thinks that they should have just had them doing more laps behind the safety car to clear some of the water? Sitting around waiting for the track to dry while it's raining and there is no sign of it stopping is pointless, maybe I'm just getting old but we have seen racing in much worse conditions than this in the past.

I fully expect them to use this as a reason to move away from the proper tracks like this and bring in more stupid street circuits, that's what they have been trying to do anyway so this will just be more ammo for that.

UPDATE: The race clock has stopped at 17:00. Citing Force Majeure under the International Sporting Code, the FIA has managed to give the race extra breathing space in these dreadful conditions. Excellent move.

If they can stop the watch, can they also turn it back? Else race time is an hour

He's not wrong though, whats the point in having races run behind a safety car until it's dry enough for inters? The track has never been safer, the cars have never been safer, the drainage as Spa has never been better, and on and on. If the cars had been running for 20 minutes, it would clear most of the standing water, give us and the spectators at the track something to look at, rather than sitting with their fingers up their arse waiting for rain to clear that has been forecast to be down for the day all week. Some of the most memorable races have started in conditions like this.

But yea, let the drivers make all the decisions.

I agree with this post and with @[Deleted User] that it’s a mess and there seems to be an overly complicated rule book written in a legalistic way which works fine when things go well, but at least the rules around this issue isn’t worth the paper it’s written on because it’s a farce.

I was looking forward to this starting at 2 then jumping over to the football at half 4

Ok, we'll just disregard the fact that the tyres can clear about 20 litres of water per second at those speeds, with 20 cars running over it and just watch miserable fans dancing, while Michael Masi searches for a hole in the weather that doesn't exist.

I hate how sky f1 are using the mans son as a tribute act to shove segments to fill time. The dudes in f1 maybe ask him a bit about himself i feel like i know nothing about the guy other then hes a Schumacher.

Seems to be some action at Aston Martin which seemed to be interesting enough to show.